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I was OC sprayed as part of my Navy training the same day. I only had a small spray compared to what those kids had at UC Davis. I couldn’t breath for the first hour right and then couldn’t move for 24 hours almost. My wife found me in the fetal position when she got home from work in blankets on the floor. If I had done the same thing the police had done I would be DEMOTED or thrown out of the navy.

About the UC Davis thing, from various news articles I read at the time, it appeared that UC Davis made multiple announcements/notices in the week leading up to the events that essentially stated that the students were not allowed to hold this particular protest on campus grounds. I know a lot of people have been throwing around the freedom of assembly thing, but I’m not sure that it would extend to UC Davis campus grounds, as I don’t think it technically a public forum. There’s a student/campus code that students are required to follow, and I’m sure for large gatherings or events such as this they need to seek staff permission to be able to hold them, but I saw no mention of this in any of the articles. All I saw regarding the students’ rights to hold this was that they had be told not to via notices around campus.

I agree, the cops seemed to resort to pepper spray before other reasonable methods had been used. I also agree that they were in no way “surrounded” or really threatened by the students that were merely chanting things like “screw the police” and “don’t attack students”. All I’m pointing out is that I don’t think the students technically had a right to protest at that particular time and place, as best as I can tell.

By the way, there’s one angle of the footage where one chick who’s right next to the camera is constantly screaming at the top of her lungs; she really needed to be pepper sprayed, she was annoying as fuck. Obviously I’m joking, but Jesus Christ is she annoying.

Spleen Cheese, I understand your point, and it is valid. However, most university guidelines are *far* more limiting than the usual civil rights any one of us would ostensibly enjoy off-campus. In part, this is because of the gradual privatization of universities over the last 30 years — so much so, that even “public” universities are no longer strictly public anymore.

Personally, I think this type of demonstration of populist politics is a bit of an innoculation against the bland pablum that’s been spoon-fed to most of us over our lives, promising certain rewards in exchange for obedience to a system, a worldview.

Of course, in fragmentation of the aggrieved whole lies the success of continuing this system. By convincing the 99% that they are actually 99 units of 1% (or potentially 1%, as the John Steinbeck quote goes * ) the corporations hope to keep us squabbling over the correct way to interpret unjust laws. . .